"You can't fix it. You can't make it go away.
I don't know what you're going to do about it,
But I know what I'm going to do about it. I'm just
going to walk away from it. Maybe
A small part of it will die if I'm not around
feeding it anymore."
--Lew Welch

How to tell a story

Saturday, January 31, 2015

I don't know why I never paid much attention to Shostakovich until now. But his music, introduced by the energetic Greenberg lectures/performance, speaks to me very emotionally. If I had discovered him as a young man, he would have influenced my work. No greater compliment.

Can't get excited about this corporate extravaganza ... probably watch or go to a movie. Not a big Seahawks fan, not a pro football fan since a kid before players were millionaites. McElhenny said he took a salary cut turning pro ha ha. A favorite story of my dad's.

Looking forward to rooting for double digit seeds in March Madness. Women's Oregon State only team I am following. Triple Crown and women's World Cup ahead.

H still has a hard time doing simple tasks, getting lost or confused and frustrated: renewing a cell phone, sending a birthday card. She went to bed "to escape." If this is it, well, life will be tough.

Sullivan is the conservative commentator I've paid most attention to over the years, one of the first political bloggers, a gay conservative who supported Obama, an intellectual.

Today he announced he is leaving blogging after 15 years. One reason: to think and write more slowly. Hear, hear! Our age has lost an appreciation for brooding and slow mental processes. I applaud him and look forward to a future book surely to come.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

as a young man
naked with a woman
it never occurred to me
I was experiencing
something transitory
something remarkable
something haunting
that as an old man
I would remember
sweetly and sadly
forever regretting
that at the time
I never got around
to thanking the gods
for the passion
of my youth

Mornings are my salvation, soft mellow jazz as I make myself breakfast, usually toast with scrambled eggs or oatmeal, iced coffee (deliriously tasty), reading the Chronicle, a few hours to myself before H rises late morning. Planning an activity or two if lack of a crisis permits. Baking every few days (and later today, H taking the new loaf to a dinner party with women's group).

Friday, January 23, 2015

I am close to finding my retirement groove in this special context I am in. Ukulele studies, re-energized by the new class at UU. Love's Body blog, getting to a project I've been putting off for years, sharing a new reading of the most influential book I've ever read. Occasional blog poems, as before. And, of course, baking and cooking and less interesting chores.

H talking to doctor today in first step to get her driver's license back. I don't think she is ready - too emotionally unstable - but am staying out of it.

Started a new 10 week, 30 video course on soloing over at Ukulele Underground, the stellar organization based in Hawaii. Best instructional videos I've seen. Not sure I can keep up but slow is better than not at all.

H off to hear Angela Davis at PSU with a girlfriend, giving me a rare evening alone. Grocery shopping after dropping her off, bake another loaf of bread so we have a choice (ran out, which is rare). Very busy with two appts tomorrow.

I can't wait until the Pope addresses Congress in the fall. I hope he takes off the gloves about climate change and our betrayal of Nature. This will put the science-denying Republicans on the spot. The Pope also could inspire grassroot protests of the Vietnam era magnitude.

Thornton Wilder marveled how humans escaped crisis after crisis "by the skin of out teeth." And we shall again ... by colonizing Mars. But meanwhile, we might still salvage a few things here on earth.

The stupidity of politicians may yet save us by being SO stupid it inspires universal outrage. I see this as the only positive scenario around at the moment. The Pope speaks to millions of common folk and has an essential role here. Will cops tear gas the Pope?

I hope we get to find out. A longshot but possible. Beats no alternatives at all.

Baking bread, classical music, Harriet and Sketch asleep, an intense wondrous morning, counting my blessings. How very sad to belong to a younger generation. Children don't deserve what the West concocted for them.

Time to reread Brown's LOVE'S BODY, the book that explains this mess better than any I know. At the same time, as Brecht wrote, "Nothing you can do can help a dead man."

Nothing left but personal integrity, kindness and empathy, and holding onto a cosmic sense of wonder and humor for as long as possible.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Some consider this late 1940s Merle Travis album of instrumentals the best guitar album ever recorded. Sounds like it to me. I grew up on him, Travis a fixture on afternoon TV in LA in the early years. Doc Watson named his son after him. Both Travis and Watson finger picked with two, not three, fingers.

A tad proud I had the patience yesterday to get the garbage disposal running again. Got the wrench I needed to turn the shaft from underneath ... the rest was patience and discomfort, on my back, working the shaft a little bit, over and over, slow progress, taking a break, back to it ... took about an hour. Resulted in a working disposal and a sore back. And saved some money.

While I was out on an errand, H responded to a fraudulent email regarding a credit card ... luckily bank found charges suspicious, caught and changed but an hour of considerable stress before then. I keep pleading not to do anything financial without my approval ... she forgets and believes the world is a nicer place than I do. This could have been disastrous. Might still be ... will find out soon.

... to step out of the classroom and leave teaching. I miss some students and colleagues, have many pleasant memories, but mainly I feel relief from responsibility (grading). No desire to go back. Well, I also miss the money, especially now, but not enough to consider returning.

It's important to know when to leave. Most jocks don't. Many performers don't.

I'm trying to remember a major sporting event not available on FREE television: Olympics, Super Bowl, World Series, March Madness, Triple Crown etc ... is the new NCAA football playoff a first in being unavailable on free TV? And is this a sign of things to come?

Folks surprised by the horrific attack in Paris - where do they think they are living? Muslim extremists have made their agenda abundantly clear. Paris event is terrible, yes, but not surprising unless one considers it a failure of security.

Oregon playing for the championship and the game isn't telecast over the free airwaves. Have to have ESPN, which we just cut. So I'd have to join the public madness, a natural when younger, but maybe I'll just listen to the radio at home. For the time being, radio still free.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

H starts post Rio rehab program, 16 sessions in 8 weeks. Structure for 8 weeks! Damn the cost, this is important - to both of us. She needs a stronger guiding hand than mine, and I need her to have a routine, so I can have a routine. This will be great, I think.

There's a barbecue in heaven, haven't you heard?
A new chef has called the angels together
and delighted them with chicken and ribs.
They sing for their supper, a chorus of contentment
and a karma of kindness beams into the darkness.

Here on earth, in the silence of grief,
I hear the heavenly chorus
and feel the good karma
and smile, knowing that Tee
still conducts music at the grill,
spreading joy with chicken and ribs,
and a smile, and a gigantic heart,
and only his home address has changed.

Watching a Spanish production in HD. Incredible! Art with balls and apparently eternal relevance.

I endorse this review ...

January 13, 2012

Format: DVD Verified Purchase

I was NOT prepared for this dvd. Diffidently (after all, what does Madrid know about Weill?), I ordered it simply to have another copy of MAHOGANNY, a work I adore.

Can you spell "schmuck"? That's what I was calling myself ten minutes into the performance. It is, simply, the most intelligent production of this "opera" I have seen (pray, be not impressed; I've seen only three others, but I've re-seen them many times).

Conducting: one couldn't wish for better. The cast: not one dud amoung them, not a one (check out Jenny's trill in "Moon of Alabama" - it is to swoon). The mise en scene? Oh, man, don't get me started. It's like a Broadway show; it's like the best of contemporary opera; it's like the old 60's days of the Living Theater. Yet it's too something "also" on which right now I can't put my finger. To borrow a phrase from Talulah B, it's a goddamn miracle. The chorus? Spot on.

Underlying all is the translation of Brecht's libretto into American English. It's superb, comperable to the translation (Blitzstein's ?) of the Threepenny Opera that put Weill/Brecht on the Manhattan scene back in the 50's. For a while my Inner Purist (who can be SUCH a bore!) fussed about losing the German...until I remembered that Weill, upon coming to Manhattan and claiming a historical place among Broadway's greats, being so ashamed of his native country rolling over for the Nazis, refused to speak a word of German. That made it all right. That made it OK. In this performance, Mahoganny, takes its place in musical history in an entirely new context: Weill in Manhattan. I think he would have loved it.

But all that's intellectual twaddle. If you have a love for Weill and his works, please do not deny yourself the pleasure of this performance. And don't expect a better one anytime soon.

I know of none better, though I know of one very close.

Madrid, bravo!

Er...make that bravissimi! Tutti!

Disclosure: I am not acquainted with anyone involved in the production of this dvd, nor do I have any financial interest therein.

Neither team made points for good sportsmanship after the blowout yesterday. Most of the FSU team sprinted for the lockeroom, the hell with the post game ceremony. Meanwhile a few Duck players chanted No Means No!, mocking the Florida QB's rape controversy. Didn't see many "Good game" moments.

The Rose Bowl game has always been available on FREE tv ... until now. It's ESPN, not available to everyone. Hand in hand with the playoff system, more corporate control of college sports. Really, really sucks.

Earlier blog (archived)

ENTERTAINMENTS

Career Support

"Charles' impact on Northwest literature and theater over the past twenty-plus years is impressive. As a critic I've followed his work since the early 1980s, and no playwright has had such an important or long-lasting effect on this community's cultural life." --Bob Hicks, Senior Critic (retired), The Oregonian

"During the years we've worked together, I feel Charles was the clearest and most important theatre voice in Oregon." --Steve Smith, Artistic Director (retired), Theatre Workshop

"This play has balls!" -- Anonymous young man, shouting in the dark before curtain call for Country Northwestern.

2006
Finalist, Mystery of the Year (Foreword Magazine), for Dead Body In A Small Room.

2007
Begin making digital films. Deconstructing Sally, perhaps the best of the bunch ("Deconstructing Sally has voice: It’s a good example of how skillful and individualistic democratic filmmaking can be.")

2008Changing Key, a video hyperdrama and lecture-demonstration presented to national hypertext conference.